Which Minivan Gets The Best Gas Mileage?

Families with a need to transport seven or eight passengers also want to save as much money as possible on fuel. But which of the current crop of 2011 minivans gets the best gas mileage?

It all depends on how you cut the numbers, but according to the EPA, the minivans with the best city fuel economy are the Japanese trio--the Honda Odyssey, Toyota Sienna and Nissan Quest.

While the Odyssey is the class leader with EPA-rated 19 mpg city/28 mpg highway from its 248-horsepower 3.5-liter V-6 engine and six-speed automatic transmission (available in the Touring and Touring Elite models), the four-cylinder Toyota Sienna and the Nissan Quest V-6 with continuously variable transmission (CVT) are its equal in the city cycle, though they fall considerably short on the highway cycle at 24 mpg each.

The worst? It's also the Toyota Sienna, which also is offered in a V-6 version with all-wheel drive (AWD).

With the exception of the Sienna, each of the remaining minivans is front-wheel drive. There’s also only one four-cylinder engine in the group – again, the Sienna. And all of these minivans but one comes with a six-speed automatic standard--the holdout being the Honda Odyssey, which comes with a standard five-speed automatic transmission, and leaves the higher-mileage six-speed to its most expensive editions.

Of course, when choosing a minivan, it has to suit the family’s needs for comfort, available features, styling, price, reliability and other considerations. But when it comes to fuel economy, there are undisputed leaders of the pack: